Hundreds of Indigenous people submit to racism register

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Hundreds of experiences of racism have been reported to the first racism register for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island people. Researchers at the University of Technology Sydney have analysed submissions from nearly 500 individuals to the call it out register.

Transcript

00:00 Well, we know First Nations people experience racism. There are studies and inquiries into

00:06 this. But in order to better understand the true extent of this discrimination, the Call

00:12 It Out Register was launched in March last year. It's an online platform where individuals

00:17 can register and then they go through a series of questions reporting an incident or ongoing

00:23 events. So nearly 500 individuals registered over 12 months and close to four out of 10

00:32 people reported a high level of violent and aggressive racism. So that's physical and

00:38 verbal abuse. Researchers have analysed the submissions and now they have put out this

00:45 report today. It's the first annual report. New South Wales had the most occurrences of

00:52 racism followed by Western Australia and workplaces were a very common location and a major concern.

01:01 What role, if any, has the referendum played? So in this reporting period for the Call It

01:07 Out annual report, it concluded in March 2023. So that's six months before the referendum

01:14 on an Indigenous voice to Parliament. Researchers have told me that they are well aware of the

01:20 significant increase in racism that First Nations people experienced closer to that

01:25 official referendum campaign. But they'll be looking at that in next year's report.

01:30 And we've seen data on that already from 13 Yarn, the lifeline call centre. So what researchers

01:38 have told me is that racial stereotyping was very common in this reporting period from

01:44 March 2022 to March 2023. Professor Chris Kenean, he's involved with Call It Out from

01:52 the University of Technology, Sydney. He said he's worried about the long term health effects

01:57 that ongoing racism is having on First Nations Australians.

02:02 One where an elderly woman was knocked to the ground and another one where an elderly

02:09 woman and her daughter, it was her daughter making the registration on Call It Out, where

02:15 they were pepper sprayed along with physical abuse. This occurred in a housing complex,

02:24 a set of housing units where they were the only Aboriginal people. She describes it as

02:30 being an all white unit except for themselves. And they'd been subjected to verbal abuse,

02:37 constant verbal abuse. And on this particular occasion, physical abuse.

02:42 So Carly, what will happen with these findings and in particular the workplaces and institutions

02:48 that you talked about earlier? So this register is less about holding individuals

02:54 accountable. And there are official complaint platforms that do do that, like the Human

02:59 Rights Commission, or HR departments in workplaces and even the police. What the Call It Out

03:04 register is more about is collating the personal lived experiences of First Nations Australians

03:11 and using that info to understand the circumstances around that. How often is it happening? Where

03:16 is it happening? And it is encouraging to see this register capture experiences that

03:23 can often be falling through the cracks through that official legal process. And it provides

03:29 us with that ability to think more strategically about how we combat racism. And this can inform

03:34 law reform and anti-racism campaigns. And that's what the Call It Out register's aim

03:40 is.

03:40 [BLANK_AUDIO]

Category

Transcript

Be the first to comment

Recommended